I HAD come to preach a crusade in a city that sits like a running sore on the bloated underbelly of India. It was this experience that took the blinders off my eyes and enabled me to see the incredible miracles that were sitting right at my doorstep. In the years that followed, God has used and multiplied these “miracles in waiting.” Much of the success in Phoenix began in Calcutta, India.
It was there I met the famous missionary Mark Buntain, one of the great saints of this century. He had gone
to Calcutta years before and had singlehandedly turned on a light on what some call the front porch of hell. Books, movies and documentaries have been written about his remarkable work. He built hospitals, schools and churches and fed hundreds of thousands of starving people.
Only Mother Teresa has received more accolades and recognition than this great missionary who literally created an island of hope in a sea of despair. Even though Mark has now been graduated to heaven, his great work continues to touch tens of thousands of Indians every day in that lost land.
That night thousands of hungry, hurting Indians poured into the public racetrack to hear me preach. Mark Buntain had arranged the meeting, and as the crowds came in wearing their baggy, dirty wraps, my heart broke. Their dark eyes were like circles of black fire boring silently into me, pleading for help. I tried to let them know there was a God who loved them and would give them life even here.
While many precious Indians responded to the altar call, I did not feel the meeting was much of a success. Perhaps I was too emotionally moved by the horror of what I had seen around me. Maybe I was in culture shock. One thing was for sure: What I had witnessed would haunt me forever, and I would lie awake many nights weeping for their great sorrow.
As my plane swept down the runway and rose high over the sordid city of Calcutta, part of me was left there forever. I had not changed the city much, but it had changed me.
Winging away from that sorrowful city I determined the poor and powerless of our world deserve better than what they now know. I determined to do all I could to help them break the awful, gripping, grinding cycle of poverty and pain. I would help them find life through the Life-Giver.
As the years passed, the memories of those Calcutta scenes faded. But in Phoenix God again gave me a firsthand vision of His love and concern for hurting people,
and all the memories of Calcutta returned. I determined again to give myself to those who had no one else to care. Like Isaiah I had heard God ask:
Whom shall I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go?”
And I said, “Lord, I’ll go! Send me.”
Isaiah 6:8, TLB
Many times when people come to the place of saying, “God, I’ll go wherever You send me,” they usually think of some place like Calcutta. I was willing to go, but for me the job began at home.
At the beginning I only thought that God’s purpose was for me to meet the needs of hurting people. As time went on I realized that God was not just sending me to the poor; He was sending the poor to me to meet my needs. They were to become the answer to my prayers —just as it was with King David.
So David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam; and when his brothers and all his father’s household heard of it, they went down there to him.
2 And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered to him; and he became captain over them. Now there were about four hundred men with him.
1 Samuel 22:1-2
Assembling an Army of Ragtags
Caring for the poor and powerless was neither new nor strange to me. I had seen my dad live out this passion. Although he had many church buses, he always also used his own car to pick up the poor to bring them to church.
Every Sunday after services our family waited at the church while Dad delivered his many riders back home. I once asked him why he did this, and he replied, “Son, I will never ask my people to do something that I will not do. This is our ministry. This is our calling.”
People often laughed at my dad saying all he had in his church was a bunch of poor bus kids. But those poor bus kids grew up, and they never forgot the love my dad had shown.
When my dad died, the church was filled with people from all walks of life. Senator Bob Dole, the mayor of the city, city council members, prominent businesspeople and social leaders were all there. Hershel Barnett pastored Victoria Tabernacle in Kansas City for forty years, and during that time it became one of the largest churches in the denomination.
I stood at the head of my dad’s casket and watched the people pass by to pay their final respects. Along with the high and mighty, an old, tattered street alcoholic brought his little, ragged mongrel dog to say good-bye.
Almost daily my dad would stop and talk to this street dweller, often giving him a little money and a piece of candy for his dog. Before the undertaker could stop him, the teary-eyed old alcoholic patted my dad, mumbling words of appreciation because this preacher had always treated him with respect regardless of how others had viewed him. Clutching his little dog, he leaned over the casket for a last look. The little mutt lovingly licked my dad on the nose. This was “their” pastor.
Some of the poor bus kids my dad reached out to developed into wonderful pastors and prominent leaders, great pastors like Bill Baker and Ray Thomas who had come to dad’s church on the buses from families who never attended church. They were not just bus kids. They were miracles in the house.
ELISHA TOLD THE WIDOW to go out and bring back as many pots as she could. As she began to pour what little
oil she had into empty vessels, the miracle occurred.
The greatest revival is always among empty vessels. Those who consider themselves to be filled don t thirst for more. In most churches Christians spend too much time filling themselves. We must be careful not to become addicted to the self-gratification of our senses when there are so many empty vessels waiting to be filled.
In our church the greatest miracles are taking place among street people, bikers, drug addicts and prison inmates. Revival is where the hurting people are.
Jesus told a story about a man who was giving a big dinner. He invited many people, but most were preoccupied with other things. The man finally said to his servant:
Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.”
22 And the slave said, “Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.”
23 And the master said to the slave, “Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”
Luke 14:21-23
People without a need won’t come to the feast. They’re not hungry.
I WAS WORRYING THAT our church ministry was getting a little stale. We had at that time eighty outreach ministries, but I knew there were more empty vessels to fill. We needed to find them. I remembered that when the widow had no more vessels to fill, the miracle was over.
So I asked the church one night, “What else can we do?”
One by one people stood up. One lady said, “We need to start a ministry to reach prostitutes. I used to be a prostitute, and no one is doing anything to help them.”
I then said to her, “I now make you the head of the prostitute ministry.”
Another stood, “Only Salt Lake City has a larger Mormon population than Phoenix.”
“I now make you the head of the Mormon ministry.”
And that man started a church within our church to reach out to Mormons.
“We have a city full of Jews,” another said.
“I now put you in charge of the ministry to the Jews.”
Gene Johnson stood and said, “What about young girls who have gotten pregnant and don’t want to abort their babies?”
Gene and Carolyn opened their home to some young unwed mothers. Soon it was filled with young girls. However, the man who owned the house next door didn’t approve of what they were doing. So when the house was available, they rented it and filled it with empty vessels, and the ministry has continued ever since. Today the Johnsons have a dynamic ministry of pouring into teenage girls, and miracles are happening in their lives.
“I think we need to do something for the throwaway kids,” one young man said — and he did it. He took in the little throwaway kids on his bus route until he had a total of thirty-four living in his home over a period of several years.
This meeting came during the time when the AIDS epidemic was first getting national attention. In those days when much less was known about how the disease could and could not be spread, Leo Godzich stood and said, “Pastor To mm y we’ve got to do something for the victims of AIDS.” Today Leo has led more than a hundred AIDS patients to the Lord and is a national spokesperson to churches on reaching out to these people with such great needs.
After the service was over, Mike Weymouth came up to me and said, “Pastor, I think God has called me to reach out to the motorcycle people. I used to ride with that bunch, and they need to hear about Jesus Christ.”
So Mike became the leader of our new motorcycle
church. Of course, it had no members — at least not yet. Mike used to be a drug dealer before he became a Christian. At first he was very apprehensive about knocking on doors. But he decided he would put away his hesitations and trust God to take care of all that. It’s not that Mike was ashamed of Christ. He just knew that behind one of those doors might be someone out to kill him over a past drug deal.
I was totally in support of all these new ministries to hurting people. But the motorcycle church worried me a little. I’m a pretty straight guy and not used to people in black leather, chains and tattoos. Who knew what kinds of weapons they were carrying with them? I had to enlarge my circle of love to include them too.
I will never forget the first time I saw them come into the parking lot. Their Harleys were popping as they rolled in like Hell’s Angels. Oh no, I thought, what will the deacons say? The church members had been careful to remind me that Phoenix is a white-collar city.
We bought a bar on the edge of our property and started the Church in the Wind. Ten months later more than three hundred bikers were filling it every Sunday morning. Now Mike has to have two services. We are currently looking to buy or build a large metal building with air conditioning, a concrete floor and a large door. That way they can drive right into church on their bikes and bring all their biker friends with them. Mike will have a world-class, drive-in motorcycle church.
Pork Chop was a four-hundred-pound biker whom Mike led to Christ. He was well-known to motorcycle people and became a dedicated missionary to his old friends. One day, while on an outreach, Pork Chop had a heart attack and died. Mike was right there, giving CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Mike Weymouth’s dedication to Christ and his love for these people are becoming legendary. Every week more bikers are getting saved, and they follow Mike as if he were the Pied Piper.
Why? Because he was willing to pour himself into empty vessels.
WALT RATRAY CAME TO me from another church during the first year I was in Phoenix. His previous church had asked him to leave because he kept bringing so many street people to their meetings.
“The other church didn’t want me,” Walt said. “Do you?”
“Walt, I want you more than anything in the world” was my reply. “I not only want you; I need you!”
I told Walt he could use one of our buses, and on the first Wednesday night he brought a bus load of street people into that very class-conscious church. One man who came with Walt had had a little too much to drink. Before I even got into the service, this man was in the pulpit, wanting to preach. As he was being escorted back to his seat, I came into the meeting and ran right into Walt.
“Oh, pastor, I’m so sorry. I won’t bring any more if you don’t want me to.”
“I want you to bring even more next week,” I told Walt. And he did.
We didn’t let that stop us. The Church on the Street, as we started calling it, increased to the point that he was bringing five bus loads to church.
One of these was Richard Hudalla, who was found drunk on a cot in a shelter. Every week Walt would invite him to come to church, but he was always too drunk. All he gave were promises until one day Walt caught him when he was sober, and he came. Richard had been a very successful accountant before his life was destroyed by alcohol. He came to the altar, was saved and instantly delivered from alcohol and cigarettes. Now Richard is again a respected businessman and has a beautiful family. He is the business manager of the Church on the Street and Walt’s right-hand man.
For a long time Walt’s dream was to have his own church for these people with a home to put them in. Today he has
the church, a mission and seven homes. Walt Ratray runs perhaps the nation’s greatest outreach to street people.
Last week the Church on the Street reached out to twenty-five hundred hurting and homeless people. So many people are getting saved in the prisons that in one the officials even let us put in a baptismal tank.
One section of our church is filled with two hundred people from the park every Sunday evening. After church we feed them and provide them with showers, haircuts and new clothes.
Sunday afternoon the buses leave about 4:30 and go wherever they can find empty vessels — apartment houses, the battered women’s home, shelters and so on. We pick up anyone who will come.
Every Sunday night many are led to Christ. Why? Because they are empty vessels. The revival is where people feel they have a need.
Fred BOULINEAU, AN EXECUTIVE for the Marriott corporation, agreed to be a part of our bus ministry. The first week that he drove a bus route he came back without picking up anyone. I knew that his bus route was in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood, and he didn’t know a word of Spanish.
“Why don’t you try a different route next week, Fred?” I asked him. “An English-speaking neighborhood would be less difficult.”
“No, I am not going to accept defeat,” he replied.
Fred went home and created a Spanish tract. He went out on the route with the tract, showed it to the people and invited them to come to church on Sunday night.
Last year more than six hundred people were saved through his bus ministry. He is believing God to double that number this year and is well on his way to reaching his goal of twelve hundred.
When we care for the poor and powerless God
blesses us with the prominent and powerful. I’ve heard it said many times by so-called experts that if you spend too much time reaching out to lower-class people, the middle and upper classes will never come. I never believed that, and I never will. The New Testament church had all kinds of people: Palestinian Jews, Hellenistic Jews from all over the Roman Empire, Galilean fishermen, Pharisaical scholars, rich, poor. Everyone was there, and they were in one accord and had all things in common. I don’t know of a church that has more upper-class, successful people than Phoenix First Assembly. Pro athletes, movie stars, city officials and Fortune 500 CEOs are regularly in our church.
When we love those God loves, He gives us an abundance that others will never know. For example, I think of former United States senator Roger Jepsen. He had come to our Davenport, Iowa, church where he accepted Christ as his personal Savior and went on to become a powerful leader in Washington, D.C., for many years. His wife became a famed leader of women during the Reagan years, and they were faithful members of our church. Because we cared for the poor and powerless in Davenport, God gave us much more.
Mighty Messes to Mighty Men
David’s mighty men started out as poor, disgruntled refugees (1 Sam. 22:2). But David wasn’t doing them a favor by giving them a chance to join his army. They were his only hope.
God didn’t send me to help the hurting. He sent the hurting to help me.
My church in Phoenix is filled with wonderful, respectable, successful and dedicated people. But many of them first came to church as drug addicts, street people or bikers.
One woman came to our church and sat on the front row for many months. She didn’t attract much attention
until someone saw her going into the men’s rest room. She — or rather, he — was actually a man dressed up like a woman. He was a broken and distressed individual looking for help. Leo Godzich, who is in charge of our AIDS ministry and who had some understanding of his situation, ministered to him.
This man was saved and over time experienced a tremendous and thorough emotional healing. Today that man, who came dressed as a woman and was one week away from having a sex-change operation, serves alongside me as a visitation deacon in our church and is committed to the cause of Christ!
THE BRAVERY AND DEDICATION with which David was served by his mighty men are unparalleled. The men’s loyalty went beyond obedience to commands. They were intensely devoted to him as friends.
THEN three of the thirty chief men went down and came to David in the harvest time to the cave of Adullam, while the troop of the Philistines was camping in the valley of Rephaim.
14 And David was then in the stronghold, while the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem.
15 And David had a craving and said, “Oh that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate!”
16So the three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines, and drew water from the well of Bethlehem which was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord;
17 and he said, “Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this. Shall I drink the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives?” There
fore he would not drink it. These things the three mighty men did.
2 Samuel 23:13-17
I could never say enough about the mighty men and women whom God has put around me. They protect me, they encourage me, and they never cease to amaze me. I haven’t done so much for them. I only believe in them, that each one has the seeds for greatness within. People say, “Look at what a church Tommy Barnett has built.” But other men and women did it. I was just a cheerleader. I just believed in people.
Jesus believed in people, too. He placed the proclamation of the good news in the hands of twelve men. If they had failed, the gospel would not have gotten out!
In 1971 God sent a young couple, Dale and Lynn Lane, to my church in Davenport, Iowa. They had a heart to serve God. Their lives were challenged. They devoted themselves, their time, their family and their finances to the work of God.
Dale started as a bus driver but was always looking for greater needs to fill. Early one very cold winter morning, I was trying to start the engines of the fleet of buses (not an easy thing to do at that time of year). I was getting very frustrated. Dale stepped in and said, “Pastor, go study and prepare for preaching. You don’t need to be out here. From now on, I will come early every Sunday morning and make sure they are all started.”
It was about that same time that Lynn became my secretary. She devoted her life to serving. Her good spirit, faithfulness, dedication, skills and attention to details have literally added years to my life.
Dale is now my associate pastor, and I believe he is the most noted associate in America. I consider him my “Aaron.” He is my arms, my legs, my hands extended. I can always count on him. We are of like heart and like mind, both devoted to winning souls and meeting needs.
You see, in the early years I poured my life into Dale and Lynn. Now they live their lives pouring back into not only Phoenix First Assembly, but into people all over America. They could be building a great church themselves anywhere in America, but I am glad they felt more could be accomplished for God by working as a team with me and the staff of our church.
It WAS A FEW months before Marja and I were to celebrate my fortieth anniversary in the ministry when I got wind of their plan. At first I thought it was a joke, but then I realized they were serious. These people were going to rent out the America West Arena where the Phoenix Suns play basketball, have people fly in from all over the country and put on the biggest anniversary party anyone had ever seen.
They were inviting celebrities, sports figures, politicians and so on. People from Davenport and individuals who were saved when I was in evangelistic ministry were coming, as well as a long list of pastors whose lives and ministries had been touched at our annual pastors’ school. It was to be the grandest of all pastors’ anniversary celebrations.
No one was risking his life for this project, but I did feel a little bit like David in the cave of Adullam. He couldn’t accept the gift, and neither could we. Maija and I put a stop to it. It didn’t matter so much to us whether or not we had that great party. What really mattered was that they wanted to do it.
If I have learned anything in Phoenix, it is this: If you pour into empty vessels when you are feeling empty yourself, they’ll pour much more back into you.
The Shoes of Happiness
Famed preacher-poet Edwin Markham captured the essence of Christlike living and giving in relating the story of Conrad the Cobbler. In his classic work “The Shoes of
Happiness,” Markham states that saintly Conrad had a vivid dream in which he was told Christ would visit his humble cobbler shop on a certain day. 1 The dream was so real that Conrad was certain Jesus would indeed come. So he decorated his simple shop with boughs of green and prepared breads and cakes to serve the Master.
Early on the morning that Jesus was to visit, two of Conrad’s friends came by, and Conrad shared the dramatic dream with them. They wanted to wait for the Master with him because they knew that if anyone in the village would ever have a visit from Jesus it would be kindly Conrad. However, Conrad told them the Lord had said specifically that He wanted to visit with the cobbler alone. Markham wrote:
His friends went home; and his face grew still As he watched for the shadow across the sill;
He lived all the moments o’er and o’er,
When the Lord should enter the lowly door.
The knock, the call, the latch pulled up,
The lighted face, the offered cup.
He would wash the feet where the spikes had been;
He would kiss the hands where the nails went in;
And then at last he would sit with Him And break the bread as the day grew dim.
But the Master did not come. Instead a beggar knocked on the door and asked for a pair of shoes. Conrad was irritated by the interruption, but his kindly heart would not let him ignore the need of the old man. He hurriedly made the shoes and gave them to the poor beggar, rushing him off so he would not interrupt or prevent the visit of the Great Guest.
A little later another knock sounded, and Conrad was sure this was the Master. But it was only a hungry old woman carrying a heavy load of sticks. She asked for food, which Conrad reluctantly gave her. The only food he had
was what he had prepared for the Master. With each bite Conrad’s heart sank. He feared he would have nothing left for his Lord, and he secretly hoped she would leave a little. However, she devoured every crumb. Then the old woman asked if Conrad would help her to the edge of the village because her load was so heavy. He did not want to leave the shop, but again the cobbler could not turn down the frail old woman. He wrote a hasty note and put it on the door, hoping the Master would not miss it and leave. When Conrad returned, the note was still there, undisturbed, so he knew the Master had not yet come.
Late in the evening there was a final knock on the cobbler’s door. Conrad’s heart leapt within him, knowing at last this would be the Master. But when he opened the door he found a lost and crying child.
“Mister, I’m lost,” the little lad cried. “Will you please help me find my home?”
Conrad sighed, gathered the little tot in his arms, retrieved his note from the wastebasket and again placed it on his shop door. He took the lost lad far across the village to his worried mother. Rushing back, he hoped he had not missed the Master and then saw the wellused note still unmoved. Conrad knew Jesus had not yet made His visit.
As the midnight hour approached Conrad knew now the Master would not appear at his door. It really had only been a dream.
The kind cobbler’s heart was broken, and in his crushing sadness Conrad fell to his knees crying:
“Why is it, Lord, that your feet delay?
“Did you forget that this was the day?”
Then, soft in the silence, a voice he heard:
“Lift up your heart, for I have kept my word.
“Three times I came to your friendly door;
“Three times my shadow was on your floor.
“I was the beggar with the bruised feet;
“I was the woman you gave to eat;
“I was the child on the homeless street.”
Poet Markham caught the passion of our Lord for the poor. Jesus says:
Fori was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;
36 “naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.”
37 Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You drink?
38 “And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?
39 “And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?”
40 And the King will answer and say to them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”
Matthew 25:35-40
God’s Word demands we see the poor as people rather than cold statistics or despised parasites of society. Clearly, God insists that a person’s worth has nothing to do with what he does or does not possess.
I have found that as we reach out to hurting people and continue to pour into empty vessels, the miracle God has been working in our midst continues. The fresh oil keeps multiplying, and the hurting people become the miracle in the house.
EIGHT
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